P1003:6, 92:1.1
The evolution of religion has been traced from early fear and ghosts down
through many successive stages of development, including those efforts first
to coerce and then to
cajole the spirits. Tribal fetishes grew into totems
and tribal gods; magic formulas became modern prayers. Circumcision, at first
a sacrifice, became a hygienic procedure.
P1003:7, 92:1.2
Religion progressed from nature worship up through ghost worship to fetishism
throughout the savage childhood of the races. With the dawn of civilization
the human race espoused the more mystic and symbolic beliefs, while now, with
approaching maturity, mankind is ripening for the appreciation of real religion,
even a beginning of the revelation of truth itself.
P1004:1, 92:1.3
Religion arises as a biologic reaction of mind to spiritual beliefs and the
environment; it is the last thing to perish or change in a race. Religion
is society's adjustment, in any age, to that which is mysterious. As a social
institution it embraces rites, symbols, cults, scriptures, altars, shrines,
and temples. Holy water, relics, fetishes, charms, vestments, bells, drums,
and priesthoods are common to all religions. And it is impossible entirely
to divorce purely evolved religion from either magic or sorcery.
P1004:2, 92:1.4
Mystery and power have always stimulated religious feelings and fears, while
emotion has ever functioned as a powerful
conditioning factor in their development.
Fear has always been the basic religious stimulus. Fear
fashions the gods
of evolutionary religion and motivates the religious ritual of the primitive
believers. As civilization advances, fear becomes modified by reverence, admiration,
respect, and sympathy and is then further conditioned by remorse and repentance.
P1004:3, 92:1.5
One Asiatic people taught that "God is a great fear"; that is the outgrowth
of purely evolutionary religion. Jesus, the revelation of the highest type
of religious living, proclaimed that "God is love."